As if we didn’t already know …
A newly-published study highlights one of the nasty side-effects of statins:
The popular cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins might take a toll on people’s energy levels, a new study suggests.
Researchers say the potential side effect, which has yet to be confirmed by other experiments, is a particular concern for women. They estimate that out of 10 women taking Merck’s Zocor, also called simvastatin, four would have less energy or feel more tired during exercise due to the drug.
Well, that’s the thing: when a drug destroys the mitochondria in your muscles, you tend to feel a bit fatigued while exercising. Doing the same work with a weaker muscle means the muscle will wear out sooner.
As I wrote in a post last year, athletes are particularly quick to notice the loss of strength caused by statins and to stop taking them. No surprise there, since for a professional athlete, a small change in athletic performance can mean the difference between being a millionaire or a has-been. For people whose most strenuous activity is walking from the parking lot to the office doors, the damage could go undetected for a long time.
Dr. Beatrice Golomb, who led the new research, told Reuters Health that many patients experience fatigue after starting on a statin, but that the evidence until now has been limited to observations.
We’ve met Dr. Golomb before. She’s been tracking the effects of statins for years and gave an outstanding (if a bit hard to follow because she speaks so quickly) lecture on how pharmaceutical companies have corrupted medical science that I embedded in a previous post.
Statins are generally thought to be safe drugs, but may cause muscle and joint pain in some patients.
Statins are generally thought to be safe because doctors are generally misinformed about the side effects and don’t generally spot and report them. As I’ve mentioned before, my mom suffered muscle and joint pain on statins. Her doctor never made the connection and (of course) prescribed pain pills to cover the effects.
Dr. Franz Messerli, who runs the hypertension program at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York and was not involved in the research, said the new findings were concerning and not unexpected given statins’ effect on muscle tissue.
But another expert cautioned that the study had some limitations and said patients shouldn’t stop taking their medication before talking to a doctor.
Gosh yes, talk to your generally misinformed doctor before dumping a medication you don’t need in the first place. That way your doctor can say, “But it makes me feel good about myself when your cholesterol score goes down, so I’d urge you to keep taking the drugs.”
“Fatigue is reversible and not fatal,” Dr. Kausik Ray told Reuters Health by email. “Risks and benefits in absolute terms should be discussed on a case by case basis.”
What the @#$% makes Dr. Ray so sure the fatigue is reversible? According to Dr. Duane Graveline, who has been studying statin side-effects for years, the damage to the mitochondria can be permanent — as it was in his case.
And are we really going to tell people it’s okay to be fatigued for the rest of their lives as long as the effect isn’t fatal?!
“I have good news and bad news, Ms. Smith.”
“What’s the bad news, Doctor?”
“You’ll probably feel tired and sore for the rest of your life.”
“What’s the good news?”
“You can live a long, long time feeling tired and sore.”
Ray, who studies heart disease prevention at St. George’s University of London, added that in his experience fatigue is not a common problem with statins.
My mom’s doctor would probably make the same statement, since she didn’t connect the muscle pain and fatigue to the statins.
But Golomb, of the University of California, San Diego, countered that doctors often fail to make the link between fatigue and statin use in their patients. “Often it doesn’t show up right away so physicians may not recognize the effect,” she told Reuters Health.
Like I said …
Neither Merck nor Bristol-Myers Squibb could provide comments on the findings, which are published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Don’t be silly. Of course they could provide comment. They chose not to, for obvious reasons.
Studies have found that in people without heart disease the benefits of statins are very small at best. As a result, Golomb said, it’s worth considering potential side effects such as fatigue before taking the drugs.
Yes, pretty please, consider the potential side-effects: muscle damage, joint pain, cognitive impairment, diabetes, liver damage, and loss of sex drive, to name just a few.
Then tell your doctor no, you won’t be taking statins.
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The article I read about the statin/fatigue connection had a quoted a doctor who leapt to the defense of the pills. He blamed the fatigue on bad choices the patients made regarding diet and exercise. Naturally, the pharmaceuticals could not be to blame. Just infuriating.
Strange how it was just the statin group who made lousy choices on diet and exercise.
Another cause of low energy is avoiding fats. Carb eaters don’t just suffer from the low blood sugar energy crash after eating carbs. Physical & metabolic energy gets low while eating carbs because the energy content of carbohydrates is **naturally** LOW compared to fats.
ALL carbs digest & are broken down to six carbon glucose molecules, with metabolic inefficiencies & conversion losses 1 six carbon glucose molecule only yields around 30 or 32 molecules of ATP, whereas a single 18 carbon stearic acid molecule, although being only three times longer in carbon atoms than the 6 carbon glucose, yields 147 ATP’s, 5 times MORE energy than carbs!!!, some medical & physiology textbooks say six times more ATP, take your pick.
See bottom page 26 & cont. on page 27 here: http://goo.gl/VVsqJ
This is a basic biochemical fact that EVERYONE should memorize because it explains why fats are so much more energizing than carbs, which is also why the body, brain, heart & most muscle cells prefer and run best on fats, and why carbs make you tired sleepy & hungry again a half hour or an hour after you just ate. Carbs are the “grass” that humans have to graze on constantly like a cow, 6 or more times a day just to maintain adequate metabolic energy, and that in a nutshell is the problem with trying to run your body on a glucose metabolism.
And processed carb “foods” and snacks made from nutrient depleted, stripped & bleached white flour with added trans fat soy, corn, canola & other ADULTERATED polyunsaturated oils are even worse & yield even less energy than the naturally energy weak whole grains and contain ANTI nutrients that actually deplete metabolic energy and wreak all kinds of other havoc and destruction in the body.
And then add statins in to top it all off, yeah, good luck with THAT!
Lowfat diet + statins = feeling lousy.
If anyone’s read the recent excellent series on cholesterol by Dr Peter Attia you’d wonder why anyone even *wants* to reduce the stuff – at least the stuff that statins attempt to blunt.
I certainly don’t.
I’ve said this before but it is worth repeating. My husband had a zero (perfect) score on his heart calcium scan – his cardiologist wanted to put him on statins immediately. When my husband asked why he was told that “it might be good now but if you don’t go on statins, your next heart scan will not look good”. The Dr even said that he takes a statin every day!
So my husband thought mmm… if eating the way I do has given me a perfect test, why fix what ain’t broken. No thanks doctor, we won’t be needing those pills or the low fat diet
If I had a zero score and the doctor wanted me to take a drug anyway, I’d find another doctor.
According to The Manga Guide to Biochemistry, cholesterol is used in making sex hormones, vitamin D, and bile acid, which is required for digestion, and that cholesterol is deposited on damaged blood vessels. I admit I am not a doctor, just an occasional shade-tree mechanic with an engineering degree, but to my mind, why not fix what’s causing the blood vessel damage? Inflammation, maybe? Vitamin D is an anti-inflammatory, and the body must have a reason for applying cholesterol to damaged blood vessels. Knocking down cholesterol just doesn’t make any sense to me.
You’re thinking like an engineer, which is a good. Dr. Briffa mentioned on a Jimmy Moore podcast that engineers, unlike too many doctors, what to know what’s wrong with the system, not just treat the symptoms of what’s wrong.
Yeah…timely article. My husband’s best friend since childhood had an emergency triple bypass on Sunday. It spooked my husband so badly he mentioned going back on statins…It took me many articles like this to get him off the statins but the aura of authority around conventional medicine is hard to shake for people who have grown up without ever questioning it. Grrrrr……We talked it out and instead he opted for a renewed effort at low-carbing.
My dad was on Lipitor for 20 years and still ended up with blocked arteries. They’re hardly a magic bullet for preventing heart disease.
I had a minor stroke in 2006 which gave me a medical problem called Central Vertigo. This is much different from the classic vertigo from everything I have read on both issues (I figured it out, the doctors didn’t). I was immediately put on Lovastatin. I retired in 2007 due to the vertigo causing several unpleasant affects causing me to be able to work less and less as time passed. I now wonder if any of it may have been due to the Lovastatin. My doctor changed my prescription one day to Simvastatin because it was the “newest” thing. It may have been hospital policy (Kaiser) then. As time passed, I found myself becoming weaker, some pain in the joints, fatigue, and a nearly complete loss of my sex drive. I guess I won’t know about muscle damage unless it’s the weakness, but my new doctor assures me that my liver is fine. I scanned the internet one day when I considered that some of my problems might be medication related, and not necessarily stroke related. I found a website with a large number of complaints about statins and the symptoms the people were having who were posting. I decided within a day or two to stop the statins and threw them out. I still have the vertigo (brain damage), weakness, and some joint pain, but my sex drive has returned and my gf and I are both happy. Just because you’re 64yo doesn’t mean you have to lose your sex drive.
I’m sorry to hear about the lingering side effects, but glad you’ve improved.
I got my mom off statins and wheat, this led to a 150 point drop in her trigs! The doctor said it was the statin that caused the drop, my mom then replied, ” I haven’t been taking the statins anymore.” The doctor then responded by scheduling another test to make sure the results were accurate, what an @hole. Obviously it couldn’t have been her diet that improved her health. I would like to bang someone else’s head on the desk for a change.
If something good happens, it can only happen because of drugs … apparently.
Saying fatigue is reversible is a bit disingenuous of the Dr. How often do patients get advised to stop taking the drugs once the docs prescribe them? It’s not going to be reversible unless you take the cause away, and if the doctors fear the cholesterol score to much to ever do that, then the fatigue is effectively forever, isn’t it?
Or at least until the patient starts making their own decisions.
“My husband had a zero (perfect) score on his heart calcium scan – his cardiologist wanted to put him on statins immediately.”
Gee, I wonder why health insurance is so expensive in this country. Malpractice like that doesn’t come cheap.
I think the only known and best way to regulate Cholesterol levels is with proper diet. Like getting rid of excess sugar since the raise small dense LDL.
Check out “doctor” eric in the comments section (eric-2573068). If this guy is really a doctor he scares me. Amazing arrogance. He really has drunk deeply of the statin laced koolade. I’m guessing he is a pharma troll.
I did. I told my doctor “NO”. Had to tell her NO more than once. She asked, “Why, because you’ve heard bad things about it?” I said Yes and she shook her head and said “It protects the heart, you really should reconsider.”
I said “O.k., I’ll reconsider…uhm, No.”
Oh, I watched your movie for the first time a couple nights ago. Thank you for gathering all that information. It was an eye opener fer sure!
Thank you for watching.
In Sweden Simvastin has been taken off the market in 2011-12-31.
Exercise is one of the things doctors tell us to do to improve all of our health markers – cholesterol included. Statins make it harder to exercise for some people and may even cause people to do less exercise than they were before. Yet this side effect is still considered to be worthwhile. Has the world gone mad?
By the way – the BBC aired a show last night called “The men who made us fat”. I have recorded it and am yet to watch, but I am told that it focuses on the food industry and how government policy has caused us to get fatter. I don’t know if you will have access to the BBC iPlayer (the online BBC catch-up) in the US, but it might be worth a watch if you can.
The world has gone a bit mad when it comes to statins.
“You can live a long, long time feeling tired and sore.” LOL! Modern medicine is certainly hung up on the life expectancy number while seemingly disregarding the quality of those final years they’re tacking on.
At the age of 50 I had a full coronary assessment by a cardiologist since every man in my family tree had suffered a neart attack or stroke by the age of 50. I underwent a nuclear stress test (inconclusive), ECG (normal) and coronary calcium CT scan, which showed mild calcification. The cardiologist added simvastatin to the niacin I had been taking since I was 45. After six months I developed liver toxicty and discontinued both a month. After that, I chose to go back on niacin. Three months later at a follow-up appointment, my cardiologist demanded that I start taking simvastatin again because my LDL was still too high.
At the time, my LDL was 80!
I pointed out to my cardiologist that using diet and niacin, my HDL had gone from 46 to 62. Before niacin, my HDL was in the low 30′s. I then pointed out to him that there’s never been a study showing that lowering LDL has any effect on heart disease. He reluctantly agreed and mumbled something about pleiotropic (e.g. anti-inflammatory) effects. He was still adamant about putting me on a statin.
I fired him.
Two years later I had a second coronary artery calcium scan and my calcium score had decreased. My new cardiologist had never seen that happen. I then told him how I ate (high fat, no sugar), and his response was priceless “that’s not what we were taught in school”.
My life is too important to be left to doctors. Through numerous blood tests, some of which I paid out-of-pocket for, I’ve determined the proper diet for me. I see my regular doctor twice a year: for an annual physical and to treat some sort of exercised-induced muscular-skeletal injury caused by an improper ratio of common sense to enthusiasm.
“My life is too important to be left to doctors.” Sad but true.
Just want to brag a wee bit: 56-yr-old, still-fat {sigh} woman, but my blood work just came back. (I get my own blood tests through LEF.org. No insurance, no doctor….)
Trigs: 63 (lab range: 0-149)
Total cholesterol: 241 (“high!” the lab warns; lab range: 100-199)
HDL: 98 (the lab says >59 is a “negative risk factor for CHD”)
LDL (calculated): 130 (“high”; lab range: 0-99)
Total Chol/HDL ratio: 2.5
Estimated CHD risk: <0.5
If I HAD a doctor, I'm sure s/he would be pushing the statins… {eye roll} cause that total is soooo high! Thank goodness for the interwebs and people like you Tom (and all your low carb/paleo/primal/sciencey colleagues)… I'm not only not worried, I'm celebrating! (With BACON!)
That is an OUTSTANDING trig/HDL ratio, Elenor. Way to go. Enjoy that bacon.
I’m in the UK and recently informed my Dr that I have not been taking the statins for the last few months because of the joint pain (which I had complained to him about repeatedly). I also talked about the fact that statins seem to be unnecessary in people who don’t already have CVD and women. He countered with the fact that women with Type 2 need statins and surely the NHS wouldn’t recommend treatment that wasn’t necessary! He suggested that I go away and look at the literature. Then a few days later, this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18109045
Is your doctor aware that people on statins have been shown to have higher rates of diabetes?
So, we have all these women with high cholesterol, but were feeling just fine, who were put on statins and who were probably told to exercise because they probably also had a bit of weight to lose. They start eating a ‘healthy’ low fat diet with lots of ‘healthy’ whole grains and their weight doesn’t drop, maybe keeps creeping up. When their doctor asks them if they’ve been exercising, the women say that they try but, dang, they’re so gosh-darn tired lately, not usual for them. The doctor scolds them for not exercising and tells them that their energy will come back if they just lose some of that weight by really sticking to their ‘healthy’ diet, which they must not be doing because they are still gaining weight. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m so glad I stopped when I started getting leg cramps at night, did some looking around, and found that statins could be the cause. My one doctor still doesn’t believe the two were connected.
That just shows how misinformed doctors are. Muscle pains are a known side effect.
I can attest to the “tired factor” from Statins. My dad takes 8 pills a day due to his Congestive Heart Disease and he feels tired most of the time. You can’t take 8 pills a day for various things and feel good! It breaks my heart seeing a once vital man’s body break down on him and turn against him.
I know I won’t suffer the same fate eating LCHF but it’s hard to watch a loved one suffer needlessly when you know the truth. I made him a grilled sandwich on white bread the other day because that’s what he wanted and I felt like I’m killing him. I had mine on one of my low carb pancakes, admittedly with a bit of wheat in the mix but spread very thin by protein powder, eggs and sour cream in the mix.
As I type this he’s in the other room dressing for the impending nurse’s visit, short of breath, struggling to even get dressed. Hard to watch and see him suffer
After years of trying to get him to eat better after his heart attack in the hospital I’ve resigned to looking after myself and helping those who want help. Just wish one of them was my Daddy. Quality of life has to count for something despite Pharma interventions. He’s 82 but my Uncle who is 85 and lives in New York is in much better health and looks after himself. So don’t blame “age” like many others do. *sigh*
Best regards to you, Chareva & the girls,
Laurie
Hugs to you, Laurie. I watched my father fade from cancer and Alzheimer’s, and I know how difficult it is to see that happen.
You have to admit, some doctors are creative with their push to prescribe statins. @ Lynda — trying to give a statin to someone with a perfect heart score to “keep it that way.” !!! I knew of one situation where a doctor tried to give an elderly man a statin to treat his diarrhea because constipation is sometimes a side of statins. Fortunately, the man’s nurse daughter said “no way!”
Good lord, it makes you wonder if these doctors are working on commission.
A naturopathic doctor of whom I am very fond likes to say “no one ever died of a statin deficiency.” His focus is on micronutrients, what he calls the “Mighty 90,” as in the 90 essential nutrients everyone needs to be healthy, and he is the first person I met–this was before I saw Fat Head–who told me that cholesterol is a good, vital, necessary substance and that anyone with a cholesterol level BELOW 200 worried him. When my mom (who later had to have a quadrupel bypass) told him her cholesterol was 150, he told her “you go home and you eat eggs for dinner with lots of butter. Eat ‘em for breakfast everyday. And for goodness sake, stop drinking soda and eating bread!”
We, of course, thought he was a quack. Five years later, I’m still apologizing to him. If we’d followed his advice, mom probably could’ve avoided the need for the surgery that nearly killed her.
Cholesterol of 150, ended up with a triple bypass. And yet there are still doctors out there claiming cholesterol that low makes you “heart-attack proof.”
On statins, you will be feeling tired and sore but will not live a long, long time. It just will seem longer.
I hate those drugs! Working in the cardiovascular scene of the medical machine, Many of our patients are on statins.
One of the biggest challenges is how to keep the elderly from falling. What causes falling? Among things, muscle weakness. And falls are a HUGE focus in home-care. We spend a lot of time and money trying minimize falls, tracking them when they happen, giving very expensive physical therapy. There is even an ICD-9 code “muscle weakness” etc etc. But take them off statins to reduce falls? No way. That would be treason if you’re a cardiologist. It doesn’t matter if about half of those on the operating room table getting a heart cath or a bypass have normal cholesterol.
Statistically, when the elderly fall and break a hip, the average lifespan is around 18 months. Just another reason to get off those things.
Since statins haven’t been shown to benefit people over 65, it’s malpractice to give them to old people who are already getting weaker.
Cholesterol of 150, ended up with a triple bypass. And yet there are still doctors out there claiming cholesterol that low makes you “heart-attack proof.”
Even worse, it was a quadruple bypass. As in, four arteries. They were 90, 92, 95, and 98 percent accluded (or, “blocked up” in normal-people speak). And after the surgery, they put her on statins! Because that’s the standard protocol! Then, when her HDLs plummeted (surprise, surprise!), they put her on a second drug to artificially raise her HDL. I had one HECK of a hissy fit.
She stopped taking the statins, and is eating better now. Not necessarily GOOD, but better. She won’t eat animal fat unless it’s butter or a little bit of bacon. I’m working on her, though.
My dad was on Lipitor for 20 but still ended up with coronary arteries 98% blocked. Even before I learned about statin side effects, that result didn’t impress me.
The best part of this is when the doctors blame the patient for their crappy medicine not working! I wonder if I can do this in other parts of my life?
Me: “My car won’t run!”
Mechanic: “Well, it looks like you put grape juice in the tank instead of gas. And also, you put plastic wrap over half your sparkplug contacts.”
Me: “Obviously the car isn’t TRYING hard enough!”
Mechanic: “Have you considered giving it the fuel it needs and not interfering with its processes?”
Me: “That’s just crazy talk!”
Mechanics know better: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2009/10/26/what-if-mechanics-and-nutritionists-switched-jobs/
FYI – my Norton antivirus program is trying to block your site saying it is a fraudulant/phishing site.
We checked with the tech department at our web provider. They’re not finding anything. Apparently it’s an issue with Norton extensions.
2 days ago while watching our kids practicing in swimming team at our local Y, I had a conversation w/ a dietician. She’s big on plant-eating paradigm (the Ornish and China Study dogma), that fat, especially saturated fat as cause of obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
I asked her, if I ate 2 tablespoon of butter by itself, would that cause blood sugar to go up.
Nope, she says.
If I ate 2 tbl of sugar, would it cause blood sugar to surge?
Yes, but that’s because plain sugar is processed, unnatural , therefore ‘bad’ and caused damage to body.
She countered: ‘But eat an apple, that would not cause such blood sugar to rise so damagingly like plain sugar, because apple has micronutrients like antioxidants, vitamins and etc that prevent such glycemic harms.’
I sighed silently in my head as she got the basic sciences wrong. The body only sees molecules. A carb is a carb is a carb, whether it’s from apple, oatmeal or sugar jar. It is broken down into various forms of glucose, fructose and etc. 1 1/2 cup of raw apple has 25 grams of carbs, equivalent to 2 tbl of sugar, same as the plain sugar.
The advice of this professional dietician is hurting her patients. I didn’t say it aloud, as I am not credentialed and don’t want to be obnoxious. Interestingly people overheard our discussion and quite a few raised their thumbs to support the dietician.
When evidence contradicts dogma, ditch the evidence.
I feel badly for her fans and especially her clients.
Yup, they’re getting bad advice from an authority figure.
@Elenor. Greetings from a kindred spirit. Let’s hear a cheer for low carb and bacon! Like you, I’m still-fat (sigh!), but have very similar lab values:
Trigs: 66
Total cholesterol: 232 (right where I want it, thank you very much!)
HDL: 87
LDL (calc.): 132
Ratio: 2.7
(I’m 15 years older than you, and on no meds.)
I was going through my desk last week and I found a bottle of statins still in the bag from the pharmacy (I haven’t taken statins in 6 months) I also found some pink wrappers I was saving from yoplait nonfat yogurt for breast cancer. I think I need to clean my desk more often.
I had the same thought when I found an old box for “Smart Meat” — a lowfat meat full of nasty additives.
As someone who has lived most of his life with tremendous fatigue (No diet has been able to change that), it is NOT fun and is quite debilitating. Any doctor who would tell you otherwise is a moron.
The world is not a bit mad about satins; it’s barking psychotic about satins. Even the people pushing them are taking them.
isn’t diabetic one of the side effect of statin?
sorry, i really want to punch Dr. Ray’s face btw. fatigue is _rare_? & reversible?
whan a patient complains about side effects of statin, most doctors probably:
(1) fatigue, weakness (or whatever side effect) is part of the normal aging.
(my husband’s hands started tremor within a month of simvastatin & was told by his Good Doc it was “essential tremor” from “aging” & statin could not have done that.
(2) it’s all in the patient’s head.
(btw, it took more than 2 years of coQ10 + red meat + SFA. now his tremor is barely noticeable.
stay healthy!
That’s part of the problem. Older people take statins, then develop pains, and the doctors figure it’s just part of aging.
I’m a Chiropractor so its malpractice for me to say anything about drugs to my patients. If your neighbor wants to tell you ANYTHING about drugs or cancer or anything its totally legal. When I try to suggest Statins might not be the best idea most of my patients agree but WILL NOT STOP ANYWAY!
Yup, they’re still bamboozled into thinking beating down their cholesterol must somehow be good for them.
Another vote for nail polish. Worked every time for North Carolina chiggers 50 to 60 years ago! If you get another bite, do try the nail polish on one of them as a test. You want a nice thick coat about the size of penny.
Okay, but it’s going to mess with psyche a bit, wearing nail polish.
@Richard. That is the most weird situation if I am a health practitioner. Definitely your hands are every tied either by the pharmacheutical companies or your patients.
Statins deplete CoQ10, that’s fairly well known; but the same mechanism also inhibits the conversion of vitamin K1 to vit K2, and K2 (MK4) is the vitamin K you need in your brain to repair myelin with sulfatides. Low levels of sulfatides are associated with poor cognition. So there’s more to statin amnesia than just low cholesterol. I discuss it here:
http://hopefulgeranium.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/why-might-statins-cause-memory-loss-and.html